PGS ASA and Carl Richards Stole My NOPGS.COM Domain – I want it back!

Domain Hijacking is a form of theft where the attacker takes access of a domain name without the consent of the original registrant. Hijacking can happen due to security flaws on your end or the end of your domain/hosting company.
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These days businesses are coming online, and their web properties are a major asset to companies. Hacking into someone’s website is almost equivalent to depriving them of their profits and earnings. So that is why hackers prefer to hijack domains and deprive a company of its internet identity.

What is Domain Hijacking and how to recover a stolen domain name

Norwegian company, PGS ASA, UK affiliate, PGS Exploration (UK) Limited directors Rune Olav Pedersen, Gottfred Langseth, Christin Steen-Nilsen and former secretary, Carl Richards filed criminal defamation claims against me in Thailand for content that was published on nopgs.com. They claimed that my publications were false and malicious and had damaged the reputation of PGS ASA to a criminal level. How did they let this happen?

“Ethics are never optional,” says John Levy. Unethical board behavior invariably leads to bad decisions and disastrous results. At a minimum, it risks reducing shareholder value. And too often it destroys trust.

Why Ethics Are Not Optional

However, as with everything, there appears to be a gray area. No pun intended of course, but this experience made me wonder how much bad news is too much? If someone comes to you for reputation management, it’s highly likely that they’re responsible for committing the sins highlighted in the SERPs [Search Engine Results Page]. If they were innocent, they’d not be at an SEO firm, but in court, filing for libel.

Jane Copland, The Ethics of Reputation Management (or, “Getting Stuff Deleted from Google”)

I now believe that the two Criminal Defamation Claims filed in Thailand by PGS Exploration (UK) Limited and Carl Richards were most likely fraudulent. PGS ASA executives Rune Olav Pedersen, PGS CEO and President; Gottfred Langseth, PGS CFO and EVP; Christin Steen-Nilsen, Chief Accountant serve as directors of PGS Exploration (UK) Limited. Carl Richards is a former secretary of PGS Exploration (UK) Limited. The question that must be answered is how competent directors could allow the situation to cause such damage? Nopgs.com was born in August 2016 following several blog publications on the LinkedIn Pulse platform. In August 2016, I was restricted from publishing on the LinkedIn Pulse platform. I sought a platform independent of misinformed gate-keepers who did not possess a knowledge of true events that I believed were being related in my blog post publications. Between April – August 2016, I had e-mailed articles, links, and content to the PGS Compliance team, which was comprised of (then) PGS General Counsel, Rune Olav Pedersen, as well as PGS SVP Global Human Resources, Terje Bjolseth. I never received any response to my many queries made through my blog post articles which I regarded as protected public disclosure, or whistleblowing. The subsequent compromise agreements proffered to stop forwarding the Thai criminal claims initiated in September 2018 – three years following the initial LinkedIn publications — by PGS ASA and Carl Richards demanded that all content residing on nopgs.com be removed because it was deemed defamatory. This included content published between July 2015 – August 2016 that had been sent to the PGS Compliance Team for comment and action.

Because of these facts, I now believe that the taking down of nopgs.com was domain theft. PGS ASA and Carl Richards falsely accused me of crimes in Thailand, but never of contractual breaches in England. Each Thai criminal claim held a possible 2-5 year prison term in Thailand. Using such threats of violence to squelch the voice of a victim of crimes and a publicly declared whistleblower is blackmail. I had committed no crimes, and PGS ASA and Carl Richards knew it. PGS ASA and Carl Richards intentionally and maliciously bypassed contractual provisions governed by the laws of England to remove protected public disclosure – whistleblowing – content by misusing the Thailand criminal justice system. Neither PGS ASA nor Carl Richards ever provided an alternative explanation to counter claims made within the blog post articles of corrupt and criminal acts perpetrated by agents of PGS ASA. I am a USA citizen who was sponsored on a Tier 2 visa and employed by PGS Exploration (UK) Limited. I believe that I was illegally terminated from employment through the use of a fraudulent settlement contract. My publications have provided substantive evidence supporting these allegations.

PGS ASA has uttered forged documents to support the fraudulent settlement contract which was proffered to avoid criminal and civil liability for contractual breaches, health and safety violations, harassment, and discrimination which were articulated within a 20 September 2013 filed grievance to PGS ASA executives. The settlement contract agreement signed on 5 December 2013 which terminated my employment contained Confidentiality (non-disparagement) clauses precisely to protect the reputation and business interests of PGS ASA (formerly Petroleum Geo-Services ASA). Yet, PGS ASA does not invoke these clauses to stop my publications in a timely manner? My first publication which identified and named PGS and its executives was published on the LinkedIn(TM) Pulse platform 3 July 2015. An American, the UK Data Protection Act, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) and the Tyranny of “Accurate Data” [3 July 2015] first publicly disclosed that PGS Exploration (UK) Limited was processing inaccurate personal data in violation of the UK Data Protection Act 1998. Nopgs.com would have never been online had PGS ASA executives responsibly enforced the terms and conditions of the original employment contract as well as the settlement contract agreement.

PGS ASA Shareholders and Employees should sue the PGS ASA Board of Directors and Executive Management for damages. Corrupt and negligent management has devalued the PGS ASA brand and all that is associated with it.

Nondisparagement agreements have been enforced in court settings at both the state and federal levels. This agreement often gets violated because its wording is vague. Further, many people don’t understand what constitutes as disparagement. 

This is usually an essential section of an agreement for many businesses, due to the importance of a company’s reputation. Things like negative publicity can drive potential customers away and lead to a drop in profit. Therefore, many businesses will readily seek to enforce breaches of these clauses.

Non Disparagement Clause Sample: Everything You Need to Know

The published contents of nopgs.com when PGS ASA and Carl Richards initiated their criminal defamation claims in THAILAND clearly states that nopgs.com promotes anti-corruption and whistleblowing. The actual nopgs.com site postings were in the ENGLISH LANGUAGE. No content was ever published in the Thai language, nor was any Thai citizen’s name or affiliation published on nopgs.com. The only named individuals on nopgs.com were agents alleged to be involved in the uttering and dissimenation of defamatory forged documents related to my termination from employment with PGS Exploration (UK) Limited. Translations (Google Translate) were only provided to my hired Thai attorney in preparation of my criminal defense. NoThai person, business, or politician was the subject of my publications on nopgs.com.

Nopgs.com was taken down following an alleged breach in the terms and conditions of a compromise agreement which was proffered in lieu of proceeding to trial in Thai Criminal Court. In November 2018, I alerted / blew the whistle to a PGS ASA customer who was negotiating a significant transaction with PGS ASA that I was being threatened with litigation in Thailand for blowing the whistle. I believed then, as I do now, that I was a victim of extortion / blackmail. Nopgs.com content was volutarily taken down to avoid criminal trial as PGS ASA and Carl Richards considered accepting the terms and conditions of the compromise agreement proffered in Thailand. All lawyers involved with this compromise agreement had been made aware of the UK Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) and Norway’s Working Environment Act (WEA) which are in place to protect whistleblowers. I volunteered to remove content and had taken nopgs.com offline during this period of consideration. (I was actually ordained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand for nine (9) days when nopgs.com was taken down. The criminal proceedings especially traumatized my Buddhist wife and in-laws.) However, I never agreed to nopgs.com being taken down completely. This was done without my consent and I believe was theft. For one thing, I had broadcast the domain for sale – meaning nopgs.com belonged to me and that it had monetary value. Further, the taking down of nopgs.com is not part of the terms and conditions of the compromise agreement.

The compromise agreement signed in Thailand did not provide PIDA protection, and therefore clauses restricting published content are voidable under PIDA 43J. PGS ASA and Carl Richards intentionally misused the Thai legal system to avoid the UK and Norwegian legal systems where my complaints and allegations were well grounded in documentation, as well as contract and criminal law. This is why PGS ASA and Carl Richards, as well as other co-conspirators involved in forming the signed 5 December 2013 settlement contract agreement which terminated my employment, do not invoke the terms and conditions for confidentiality and non-disparagement. Valid contracts construed under the laws of England provide whistleblower protection. Invoking the terms and conditions of the signed 5 December 2013 settlement contract agreement for breaches would also require PGS ASA and Carl Richards to address the salient issues leading to its proffering and also the supporting documentation. I have long contended that the supporting documentation being processed within my PGS Exploration (UK) Limited personnel file is comprised of inaccurate and defamatory forged documents which render the 5 December 2013 settlement contract agreement to be an illegal contract. I believe that the 5 December 2013 settlement contract agreement was proffered to conceal criminal and civil wrong-doing. I also believe that my representative counsel/solicitor Philip Landau was bribed to process the forged documents and illegal contract. My online publications on nopgs.com substantiated my claims of criminal wrong-doing by PGS ASA and Carl Richards with documentation. Regardless, in the final analysis, any damages to PGS ASA and Carl Richards’ reputations could have and should have been addressed in the English legal system referencing the 5 December 2013 settlement contract agreement and not in the Thai legal system – thus BLACKMAIL.

Under the Limitation Act 1980 (the Act), the applicable limitation for defamation is one year from the date of accrual of the claim, which in libel claims accrued at the time of publication.

I first published online content critical of Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (PGS) management 3 July 2015. This could have been a breach in the non-disparagement clauses within the signed 5 December 2013 settlement contract agreement. However, the reason for publishing my concerns was because I had already brought-up many substantive concerns regarding the integrity of the personal data that PGS ASA was processing about me. I wrote a series of e-mails to PGS ASA human resources (HR) personal data processors challenging the fidelity and legality of that data from 16 October 2014 through 22 December 2014. I also wrote several e-mails to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about my concerns. I provided ICO with much of the same e-mail evidence that countered the narrative preserved within my personnel file contents as unsigned and unauthenticated documents. In fact, PGS ASA initially threatened legal action against me within a 22 December 2014 letter demanding that I stop probing. Within the 22 December 2014 letter, PGS ASA offered to “solve” my complaints through including one of the more substantial e-mail’s written on 5 December 2014. The 5 December 2014 e-mail pointed out the many factual annd defamatory discrpencies in the personal data being processed by PGS ASA. The 5 December 2013 settlement contract agreement was/is an illegal instrument which was intended to block legitimate civil and criminal proceedings against PGS ASA / PGS Exploration (UK) Limited. All the lawyers and human resources personnel involved with the negotiating and processing of the 5 December 2013 settlement contract agreement know that it is not a legal instrument. I have believed for some time that I was a victim of crimes perpetrated by PGS ASA. I submitted my first criminal complaint to UK ActionFraud (police) on 24 August 2014. The dysfunctional criminal justice system of the UK cannot discern that narcissistic / psychopathic criminals are adept liars or contemplate that a fake settlement contract was employed to escape criminal and civil liability. The police refuse to ask the most basic questions. No wonder so much (90%) of cimes in the UK go uninvestigated and punished! UK citizen’s should be more outraged than I am!

PGS ASA General Counsel and Legal Compliance at the time of the settlement contract agreement signing was none other than current (alleged criminal) PGS ASA CEO and President, Rune Olav Pedersen! Lawyer Carl Richards was appointed PGS Exploration (UK) Limited Secretary 13 September 2013 to prepare for the conspiracy to defraud a foreign worker whistleblower. I believe that operatives in the legal firm Watson, Farley, and Williams, notably Rhodri Thomas, were bribed to process an illegal settlement contract under false pretenses supported by defamatory forged documents along with my hired solicitor, Philip Landau and his associate Holly Rushton. PGS ASA HR personnel must understand that unsigned and unverified documents would not withstand true legal scrutiny in a legitimate court of law. The perpetrators need only to remain silent and take no action to get away with their fraud. The criminal claims put forward in Thailand, which I believe were illegitimate, were a high risk move intended to scare their victim into silence. It didn’t work. I have now breached every contract PGS ASA has formed because I am fully confident that PGS ASA is illegally processing – uttering forged documents created to defame, blacklist, and defraud a victim of their crimes. If the 5 December 2013 signed settlement agreement were a valid legal instrument, then why has PGS Exploration (UK) Limited not invoked its non-disparagement protections? Similarly, if the two compromise agreements signed in Thailand are valid legal instruments, then why can’t PGS lawyers elaborate on how their litigation in Thailand is legal and compliant and also demonstrate that legal processes and documents were processed for my termination of employment? PGS Exploration (UK) Limited refuse to answer or address the concerns brought-up in the 5 December 2014 e-mail challenging the integrity of the data being processed in my name. In other words, PGS Exploration (UK) Limited is running from the truth. This is the opposite of defamation.

I worked in England for 36 months on a Tier 2 visa, eligible through the Shortage Occupation List where companies must specifically require and request foreign expertise where there is no resident eligible candidates.  I left England at the end of 2013 shortly after having our family visa’s renewed.  Therefore, DPA applies to my personal data processed in the UK.  The sixth principle of the DPA gives rights to the individual in respect of personal data the organization holds about them.  Toward the end of 2014, I learned more about DPA and submitted a subject access request (SAR) to my former employer to find out what data was being held about me.

An American, the UK Data Protection Act, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) and the Tyranny of “Accurate Data” [3 July 2015]

Most data controllers are inclined to process subject data reasonably.  It would not be fair to suggest that how my personal data was processed is common or reflective of normal business practices.  For this reason, I believe it is imperative that the data controller and processors involved with my personal data be specifically identified.  My employer was PGS Exploration UK Limited, which is an affiliate of the Norwegian company, Petroleum Geo-Services.  For the record, Norway adheres to their version of the EU Directive which is similar to the DPA, the Personal Data Act.  In my daily work in England, I interacted and communicated with the main office in Norway frequently.  I was employed as a Contract Sales Supervisor for the Marine Contract division, Africa region.  My boss in England was Edward Von Abendorff, VP Marine Contract Sales Africa.  His boss is Simon Cather, Regional President for Africa.  The main processor for my SAR was David Nicholson, Human Resource Manager.  I also communicated with individuals based in Norway:  Per Arild Reksnes, Executive Vice President of Marine Contract, Terje Bjølseth, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, and John Greenway, Senior Vice President, Marine Contract with respect to my processed data. 

AN AMERICAN, THE UK DATA PROTECTION ACT, PETROLEUM GEO-SERVICES (PGS) AND THE TYRANNY OF “ACCURATE DATA” [3 JULY 2015]

I am not a multinational company, but I have been around the block and around the world.  I understand the challenges faced in this climate.  I cannot accept my narrative being defined through the tyranny of self-impressed psychopaths.  I want control of my narrative.  I know what I have done for the past fourteen years and before.  For most data subjects the issue is data accuracy, not damages that meet some subjective legal definition.  Falsification is damaging, plain and simple.  It is clear to me that values and performance are interpreted much differently.  This is why any relationship ends and mature people move on.  However, this is difficult to do when those on the other side of the relationship team-up and work in the shadows like vampires scared of the light of day.  Instead, they chose to maintain secret files avoiding confrontation that would require them to defend their objectives and actions.  The Founding Fathers of the U.S. were endowed with the courage to challenge tyranny because while they feared the abuse of power, they feared the submission to it even more.  I call on their spirit.  I am American, and this is MY Independence Day.

AN AMERICAN, THE UK DATA PROTECTION ACT, PETROLEUM GEO-SERVICES (PGS) AND THE TYRANNY OF “ACCURATE DATA” [3 JULY 2015]

From April – August 2016, I attempted to contact PGS Compliance Hotline members many times and even forwarded links and posts directly to PGS Compliance Hotline members, including Rune Olav Pedersen. I never received any response regarding my publications from the PGS Compliance Hotline members. However, the litigation in Thailand forwarded by PGS Exploration (UK) Limited directors, Rune Olav Pedersen, Gottfred Langseth, Christin Steen-Nilsen and former secretary, Carl Richards, sought to remove ALL content, even content which had been published for over a year and only mentioned their names, regardless of context. PGS ASA has no interest in the truth. The truth is that I am a victim of now multiple crimes perpetrated through a dysfunctional criminal justice system that overlooks white collar crimes and contributes to the destruction of honest law abiding citizens, as many whistleblowers often are. It is a travesty and injustice! Demand that white collar criminals are investigated and adjudicated. Criminals need to be punished, not their accusers!

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